Flights for an Overnight Trip to Pennsylvania, 2026

August 12-13, 2026. I made an overnight trip to Washington, Pennsylvania, attempting to watch the Pony League World Series. This would be a very brief rundown about the flights back and forth.

American Airlines Flight 4371 and 4579 from Boston to Pittsburgh via New York LaGuardia

American Airlines 4371
Operated by Republic Airways
Boston, MA (BOS) - New York LaGuardia (LGA)
Embraer ERJ-170 (N979RP)
Seat 9F
Scheduled Departure - 8:05am
Actual Departure    - 8:11am
Scheduled Arrival   - 9:29am
Actual Arrival      - 9:01am
50 minutes

Here's GPS tracking:

The first leg of my flights to Pittsburgh played out almost as an identical replay of my flight to New York the previous November: similar schedule, the same approach pattern into LaGuardia that circled Lower Manhattan. The one variable was time of week, a Wednesday morning rather than a Saturday. With this being peak business travel time, unsurprisingly, my upgrade request failed to clear.

Just like last November, I also recorded a video of the approach, though this time I sat on the right side of the plane, the wrong side the an aerial tour of Lower Manhattan and New York Harbor.

 

For my next flight to Pittsburgh, the tray table wasn't properly cleaned with traces of cookies left. (I had always been puzzled by American Airlines’ choice to serve cookies, given how prone they are to creating messes that are hard to clean off.) Otherwise, the flight passed over an unbroken ceiling of cloud, offering little to see.

American Airlines 4579
Operated by Republic Airways
New York LaGuardia (LGA) - Pittsburgh, PA (PIT)
Embraer ERJ-175 (N103HQ)
Seat 9F
Scheduled Departure - 10:09am
Actual Departure    - 10:26am
Scheduled Arrival   - 11:44am
Actual Arrival      - 11:26am
1 hour

Here's GPS tracking:

Here's a video of the takeoff:

Here's a video of the landing:

And as for the Pony League World Series championship match that I came to the Pittsburgh area for, unfortunately, it had rained heavily for days leading up to the match, and the venue, Lew Hays Pony Field, was built on an old quarry site with poor drainage. Two hours before the scheduled start, officials cancelled the game due to “unplayable field conditions.”

Returning to my hotel room, I discovered several deer grazing among the bushes outside my window. I captured the photographs below, which meant my telephoto lens had not made the trip in vain.

American Airlines Flight 4610 and 4420 from Pittsburgh to Boston via New York LaGuardia

The next morning, hoping to salvage most of the workday, I booked the earliest flights back to Boston. The first leg was scheduled to depart Pittsburgh at 6:09am. Not wanting to sacrifice sleep, I timed my departure from my overnight hotel to reach the airport just over 50 minutes before my flight.

Pittsburgh Airport had recently completed a major renovation, removing the old terminal headhouse and constructing a brand-new check-in facility near the current passenger terminal. The airport branded this as "right-sizing", more than two decades after US Airways dehubbed Pittsburgh. While the new facilities appeared modern and sleek when I arrived the previous day (p1 below), the security checkpoints could hardly be described as "properly sized". At 5:20am, I watched the general security line snaking along the entire length of the terminal (p2 below). The airport's official wait time estimates failed to account for the portion of the line overflowing into the lobby, but by my extrapolation, the wait at the back of that line would easily reach an hour.
Fortunately, I had access to the priority lane and cleared security in just 10 minutes. But the uncomfortable truth remained: without priority access, I would have missed my flight, and I would place the blame squarely on Pittsburgh Airport (or its TSA operation). Perhaps my home airport of Boston had spoiled me, but what I witnessed that morning was genuinely disheartening.

American Airlines 4610
Operated by Republic Airways
Pittsburgh, PA (PIT) - New York LaGuardia (LGA)
Embraer ERJ-175 (N414YX)
Seat 2F
Scheduled Departure - 06:09am
Actual Departure    - 06:11am
Scheduled Arrival   - 07:35am
Actual Arrival      - 07:09am
52 minutes

Here's GPS tracking:

Security woes aside, this leg to LaGuardia was the only one of the four segments where my upgrade cleared. Unfortunately, that meant I was seated on the right side of the aircraft, the wrong side again for an aerial tour of New York City before landing.

Here's a video of the landing:

On my next flight to Boston, I arrived at the gate at the posted boarding time only to find the process nearly complete; the agent had evidently started early. Consequently, the agent proclaimed overhead bin space exhausted and began gate-checking all remaining carry-ons. Since I had my camera in my suitcase which I preferred not to handled by the baggage crew, I found myself rearranging my belongings on the spot. Fortunately, I didn't have much packed for this overnight trip, so the impromptu reorganization proved no great burden. Once aboard, however, the sight of an empty bin directly above my seat did little to improve my mood.

American Airlines 4420
Operated by Republic Airways
New York LaGuardia (LGA) - Boston, MA (BOS)
Embraer ERJ-170 (N979RP)
Seat 8A
Scheduled Departure - 8:30am
Actual Departure    - 8:50am
Scheduled Arrival   - 9:49am
Actual Arrival      - 9:35am
45 minutes

Here's GPS tracking:

The flight itself proved largely uneventful, though it involved a complete reversal of direction: having landed on LaGuardia’s Runway 22 barely an hour earlier, we now departed from Runway 4. Coincidentally, the same plane (N979RP) that took me from Boston to LaGuardia yesterday morning now was flying me back to Boston.

Here's a video of the takeoff:

Here's a video of the landing:

Upon landing in Boston, this overnight trip to Pittsburgh drew to its close.
END